Blizzard EntertainmentSince we first announced World of Warcraft Classic, we’ve seen questions about spell batching. While we never really eliminated spell batching in WoW, we did change how (and how often) we process batches of actions coming from players, so you’re less likely to notice that processing in today’s game. We’ve been working to ensure that in WoW Classic, the gameplay of activating spells and effects will not differ from the experience of playing original WoW.

It was relatively common in the original game to see a warrior Pummel a mage who simultaneously and successfully Polymorphed the warrior. The mage suffered Pummel damage but no spell-school lock, because the mage didn’t get interrupted. This could seem paradoxical, but it could happen because the Pummel and Polymorph were both in the same batch, and were both valid actions at the start of the batch. For the most part, things like that don’t happen in modern WoW, but they still can. We’ve made improvements to batch frequency, and the game is much more responsive than it used to be. Still, if you manage to get both a Pummel and a Polymorph into a tiny processing window in modern WoW, you’ll experience the same behavior as in original WoW.

As with many other areas of WoW Classic, authenticity is our primary concern. It used to be the norm that combat flow and PvP balance were defined and tuned in a game where spell messages were resolved less frequently. There was a single game loop that processed all messages sent and received every server tick. Nowadays, the game processes multiple loops for messages of differing priorities. Spell casts are high priority, and have been for a long time.

For WoW Classic, we’re moving spell casts to a low-priority loop that will cause them to be processed at the frequency that best fits how the game actually played in version 1.12. Two mages will be able to Polymorph each other somewhat reliably, resulting in two sheep nervously pacing around at range. Two warriors will be able to Charge one another, and the end result will be both warriors standing stunned in each other’s original location.

One of the best updates to see, in my opinion. This helps ensure we'll be getting authentic PvP which is extremely important for to maintain the authenticity of Classic to mirror 1.12, like they state. I'm so happy how much they're listening to the community on these issues!

This is crazy territory. Spell batching is ..... Its so small on the scale of things that matter. None of the vanilla private servers ever got spell batching working properly. Think about that.... And yet Blizzard is putting it in.

There goes the idea that the game won't be able to hold up in large raids..... current hardware plus the slower batch loops means raids should hold up much better than they did in vanilla man.

TripTryad-Reddit

I saw this comment in their thread regarding the subject and this really puts it into perspective how private servers aren't a good replication of how real Vanilla will play. I think this small step forward in what everyone needed/wanted from blizzard and many people have said that Old Blizzard is back. I sure hope so.

This is crazy territory. Spell batching is ..... Its so small on the scale of things that matter. None of the vanilla private servers ever got spell batching working properly. Think about that.... And yet Blizzard is putting it in.

There goes the idea that the game won't be able to hold up in large raids..... current hardware plus the slower batch loops means raids should hold up much better than they did in vanilla man.

TripTryad-Reddit

I saw this comment in their thread regarding the subject and this really puts it into perspective how private servers aren't a good replication of how real Vanilla will play. I think this small step forward in what everyone needed/wanted from blizzard and many people have said that Old Blizzard is back. I sure hope so.

Honestly it’s hard to put in perspective how many small things are so hard to fine tune to a perfect 100% replica and the amount of information available is vast yet limited. There are many underlying dynamics that go all but unnoticed by the majority of the population. Blizzard has a reference client. Not to take away from their work currently with classic, but there’s no reason to knock private servers for what they provided not being perfect; it gave many people an avenue to experience something to similar to what everyone is asking for in classic and that request being answered can undeniably largely be attributed to private server vanilla emulation’s success.

Whomever is running the Classic team (if all goes accordingly) deserves to be recognized. Communication is key and is how a company should be run. Hoping the Activision oversight doesn't ruin anything..

This is crazy territory. Spell batching is ..... Its so small on the scale of things that matter. None of the vanilla private servers ever got spell batching working properly. Think about that.... And yet Blizzard is putting it in.

There goes the idea that the game won't be able to hold up in large raids..... current hardware plus the slower batch loops means raids should hold up much better than they did in vanilla man.

TripTryad-Reddit

I saw this comment in their thread regarding the subject and this really puts it into perspective how private servers aren't a good replication of how real Vanilla will play. I think this small step forward in what everyone needed/wanted from blizzard and many people have said that Old Blizzard is back. I sure hope so.

Honestly it’s hard to put in perspective how many small things are so hard to fine tune to a perfect 100% replica and the amount of information available is vast yet limited. There are many underlying dynamics that go all but unnoticed by the majority of the population. Blizzard has a reference client. Not to take away from their work currently with classic, but there’s no reason to knock private servers for what they provided not being perfect; it gave many people an avenue to experience something to similar to what everyone is asking for in classic and that request being answered can undeniably largely be attributed to private server vanilla emulation’s success.

I’m high, /end rant.

You're definitely right, without private servers Classic would probably not exist and mostly I was making the comparison due to the fact how it might affect world pvp where a mechanic like this is crucial to be consistent and mastered/played around.

Does anyone with a good knowledge of spell batching know if it was affected by each player's latency?

I didn't much mind either way spell batching went, but I'm wondering if the European Private server players who fancied themselves to be YT vid pvp gods will be disappointed once there are no more high ping Americans to PvP against.

Does anyone with a good knowledge of spell batching know if it was affected by each player's latency?

I didn't much mind either way spell batching went, but I'm wondering if the European Private server players who fancied themselves to be YT vid pvp gods will be disappointed once there are no more high ping Americans to PvP against.

Technically yes it would, because each batch is server side and it can only add spells into the batch as the server receives it. So if batch one was 60ms in length and the next one was also 60ms (for a total of 120ms), a person in the EU who clicked a button would be in batch one (Expecting their ping being less than 60ms) and a person in the US (likely about 100ms) clicking a button would be in batch 2. If anything this probably makes it harder for an EU player as you have to account for their ping.

I don't want to see this as a big "conspiracy theory", but it looks like when players are giving feedback about Retail WoW, there is so many players to account for, and so much money involved, that Blizzard can feel the omnipotent eyes of Activision (and its investors) luring above them, which makes them unable to fully takes the right decision, or they may take it but a little step at a time, just to be sure not to disturb too much things at the same time (which honestly, on the long run, do more harm than good to the game)... At least I see it like this, and I hope it's something like this, because else, it would mean that it's just Retail devs that are completly out of touch with the community, and that's even worse.

On the other hand, Classic isn't even in the radar of Activision (and its investors), it's like this big boss that would authorize you to do your side project during your free time at work as long as it doesn't impact your efficiency. So Blizzard don't have their hands tied here, they know their decision will only impact a very specific target (which also might be the most unforgiving one) so they're trying even harder to appeal to those players, because they don't feel restricted by any means, it's their "passion side project" and that's why they seem dedicated enough this time.

I might be absolutly wrong here, but that's how I tend to see this, considering the contrast between Retail ongoing messy dev and Classic promising one.

"Yesterday is history, tomorrow a mystery, but today is a gift : that's why it's called present."

I love this! Both as a player, and as someone who fervently writes about Classic World of Warcraft (in Dutch, mind you), it's great to see Blizzard is opening the communication channels. The stream of news we're getting is great. And it can only mean one thing:

They're finishing up the project and are getting ready to make an announcement any day now.

I don't want to see this as a big "conspiracy theory", but it looks like when players are giving feedback about Retail WoW, there is so many players to account for, and so much money involved, that Blizzard can feel the omnipotent eyes of Activision (and its investors) luring above them, which makes them unable to fully takes the right decision, or they may take it but a little step at a time, just to be sure not to disturb too much things at the same time (which honestly, on the long run, do more harm than good to the game)... At least I see it like this, and I hope it's something like this, because else, it would mean that it's just Retail devs that are completly out of touch with the community, and that's even worse.

On the other hand, Classic isn't even in the radar of Activision (and its investors), it's like this big boss that would authorize you to do your side project during your free time at work as long as it doesn't impact your efficiency. So Blizzard don't have their hands tied here, they know their decision will only impact a very specific target (which also might be the most unforgiving one) so they're trying even harder to appeal to those players, because they don't feel restricted by any means, it's their "passion side project" and that's why they seem dedicated enough this time.

I might be absolutly wrong here, but that's how I tend to see this, considering the contrast between Retail ongoing messy dev and Classic promising one.

The thing with retail is that it is a 15 year old product, and with common (non video game related) business practices, it is no more than a cash cow. The video gaming market is changing insanely fast and that a 15 year old game still is supported and updated is nothing short of a miracle.

Regarding Spell Batching: I like that Blizzard is paying attention to details here and is going for authenticity, although I don't really like Spell Batching and personally would prefer it if they would go with the modern system.